


A Quiet Night on a Dark Country Road

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amnesia, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 11:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16117166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: Jack finds the bloodied and battered body of an omega on the way home from a party, and decides to take him in until he can figure out who he is and where he came from...ifhe can figure it out.





	A Quiet Night on a Dark Country Road

**Author's Note:**

> I started work on this a few months ago but then got sad about it and stopped. Now however I've finished and I hope you enjoy :)

Jack had sobered up over an hour ago, just as the party started winding down. Jack only bothered telling a handful of people goodbye, too tired to pretend to care about the rest of the nobodies gathered, most of who had spent half the night transparently trying to curry his favor. Now only thinking about how much he wanted to be in his own bed, he’d gotten into his car and flicked on his favorite, late-night radio station.

He sped out of the city, out of suburbia, the neon lights illuminating the world around him gradually fading and shrinking as he drove further into the countryside. Someday his commute felt like a bitch, and more than once he’d considered buying a penthouse in the city for the weekdays, but tonight, with nothing but the moon glowing on the road and grass and shifting trees around him he felt as peace even as he pushed eighty miles on the speedometer.

By the time he turned off of the highway and onto the road that’d lead him to his estate, he’d almost completely zoned out—to the point where he almost didn’t see the body laying prone in the middle of the asphalt.

Jack’s head rocked violently forward and back against the seat rest as he stomped on the breaks. His spine twinged, straps of the seatbelt biting so hard into his chest he’d probably have bruises their later. He swore, smacking his palms against the steering wheel as he caught his stunned breath, before straining in his seat and trying to get a good view of the road in front of him, but all he could make out was a hand laying limp and illuminated by his headlights, the rest now obscured by the hood of his car. His vision popped in lingering pain as he wrenched off the seatbelt and stalked out of his car on wobbly legs to get a proper look.

Above the scent of blood and gas he could eke out the barest scent of something soft and sweet, a scent recognizable by instinct. Jack’s nostrils flared as he sniffed.

Kid was an omega.

… _Crap._

Jack had grown use to high-society omegas belonging to new-money families stuck in old-money values, who stayed mostly quiet apart unless spoken to, who dressed to impress but do little else otherwise. Beautiful but placid, decorations rather than people.

Jack’s instinct to bust open stuffy conventions always drove him to strike up conversations with these people, just to watch their alphas heads spin, but they almost never took the bait, leaving Jack more annoyed than anything. Gradually, he’d stopped bothering to try to talk to them.

But this kid looked different. Even with his body broken by grievous injuries, Jack could tell he was taller and longer-limbed than most omegas, and his clothes weren’t exactly the fancy couture worn by the high-class mates of Jack’s associates. Plain shirt and tie and pants, like he’d just been plucked by one of Hyperion’s own cubicle farms.

The blood looked black thanks to the night, looked like something was eating the omega alive. It covered his entire body, soaking into his clothes and matted into his hair. Jack could see every awful detail as he knelt by him, hand floating out to caress the sliver of air around his skull, suddenly too afraid to touch him.

The arm looked bad. The whole of the omega looked bad, but the arm had suffered the worst of whatever’d happened to him. Jack couldn’t  make out much aside from blood and bone, like someone had taken a hammer to the kid’s forearm and just kept whacking.

The mindless anger ignited by the first sight of the downed omega just kept building until Jack’s fingers trembled with rage and adrenaline. His alpha brain tore viciously between two base needs, for a moment leaving him paralyzed as he suddenly  _needed_  to track down whoever had done thing and rip their knot clean off their body. Thankfully, the weight of the injured omega in his arms helped to ground him, and after a few seconds of uselessly gnashing his teeth and indulging violent fantasies he worked his arms further beneath the injured man, gentling him against his chest in a protective hold.

The omega whimpered at the shift, his voice stretched and broken as his body. Jack stayed still, half cradling him in his arms as he let the omega rest his head against his shoulder.

“ _Shhh_. Kitten. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” There was a patch of hair atop the omega’s head not crusted with blood and gravel. Jack pressed a careful kiss there, hoping it might help him relax as he murmured into his scalp.

“Don’t worry….gonna get you help.”

Calling an ambulance never crossed Jack’s mind. His estate lay far out in the countryside, surrounding on all ends by miles of grounds even he hadn’t fully explored. Barely anyone apart from himself and his staff drove these roads, and even the most experienced driver would probably get lost all the way out here. At the very least, it would take way too long for any emergency personnel to get here. Jack had an on-property doctor. It was just logical.

The less logical part of his brain was loathe to hand off this omega to anyone else, even if they were trying to to save his life.

Jack propped the omega against his chest as he eased the passenger’s side door open, before sliding him into the seat as carefully as he could muster. Things went smoothly, up until the point where he tried to pull the seatbelt across the omega’s chest. A pitiful whine suddenly choked out of the omega’s throat as he jerked forward and flecked Jack’s forearm with a mist of blood.

Jack gave up in strapping the seatbelt in lieu of racing to the driver’s seat and starting the car as fast as possible.

The choking fit stopped soon, thankfully—or not, as a sidelong glance to the omega told Jack he’d slipped into worse shape, listing against the car window. In the darkness, illuminated only by the dashboard lights, he couldn’t see if the omega was awake, and only when he dared to lift the hand off the wheel and stick it under his nose could he confirm the omega was still breathing. It brushed up against his finger, weak as the paw of a sick kitten.

Jack’s instincts pushed his foot even harder against the gas pedal.

Once his headlights illuminated the imposing gate of his estate’s front entrance, Jack barely managed to keep his fingers steady enough to punch the proper code into the keypad. When Wilhelm’s gruff voice answered over the loudspeaker he took only seconds to spit out “ _get Nina, emergency”_  before he floored it through the slowly opening gates and just barely avoiding scraping the paint off the sides of his car. His tires screeched when he finally came to a halt in front of his mansion, not bothering to pull into the garage as he jammed it into park and raced back around to the other side of the car.

The omega looked grey and felt clammy when Jack cradled him back in his arms, but he groaned at the change in position and fluttered his eyelids up at Jack. Blood smeared his lips from where he’d helplessly tried to wet them. His fingers twitched, curling into his own shirt.

The broad, dark-wood doors of Jack’s mansion banged open, the warm light from inside partially blocked by Wilhelm’s bulk.

“Boss? The hell’s going on?” His voice resounded, hoarse at the lateness of the hour but servile as he met Jack halfway, brows raised as he took in the critically injured omega cradled in the other man’s arms. A snarl rebuked Wilhelm’s attempt to take the omega from Jack, a grunt of understanding passing from between his lips as Jack rushed inside of the mansion with his guard trailing behind him.

“Is Nina awake?” Jack moved as quick as he could towards the east wing, trying to keep the omega in his arms as still as possible. Wilhelm pressed a finger to his earpiece and nodded.

“Said she’d meet us in her office.”

Jack nodded. Nina might not have the best bedside manner, and some of her home remedies occasionally edged into “utter horse-shit” territory, but she knew well enough when an emergency was an emergency and required her utmost attention and skill.

The door to the office opened up as soon as they got close, the heavy sounds of their footsteps alerting Nina to their presence. The medic still wore her slippers and her hair was down and slightly frizzy, with no time to tie them up in the usual buns. Her eyes widened as Jack bustled through, falling on the limp, bloodied man cradled in her boss’s arms.

“ _Is_  real emergency, then.” Nina stepped aside and gestured to the medical table in the center of the office. Jack clutched the omega closer to his chest as he walked over, for a moment unwilling to let him go.

_What if Nina couldn’t save him? What if Jack had found him too late_? Fear paralyzed him for a moment as he clung to that thin omega scent filtering through the heaviness of blood and dirt, and only a broad hand on his shoulder brought him back to reality.

“Boss,” Wilhelm whispered from above him, “set him down.”

Jack swallowed, the nod he gave tight.

“Okay.”

Somehow the omega looked even paler against the med table, skin washed out beneath the exam light. Those black splotches of blood he’d seen on the road now illuminated bright, wet red, the real extent of his injuries evident. Jack moved back, his legs feeling numb and dead, adrenaline draining out of him now that there was nothing left to do but wait and hope for the best.

After a cursory examination Nina ended up calling Gladstone, the surgical assistant similarly stumbling in with hair frazzled and eyes tired. Jack should’ve expected the omega wouldn’t be fixed up with a couple of band-aids, but the uncertainty of  _surgery_  had him bobbing his leg and grinding his teeth over where he sat, sandwiched between a wall and Wilhelm’s steady bulk.

“Is bleeding very badly,” Nina told him as she snapped on a fresh pair of gloves, “many broken bones. Will do our best.”

Her sparse words and lack of prognosis didn’t do much to quell his anxiety, leaving Jack hissing and shifting uncomfortably in his seat as they wheel the omega into the adjoining room, leaving him and Wilhelm in the silence interrupted by only the buzzing of the lights. After such a stressful hour, having nothing to do and no news to chew on left Jack with a crap-ton of riled energy with no proper outlet.

“Damn it… _damn it_ …” He eventually hissed, the fingers on his folded arms tapping out an uneven beat. Wilhelm stayed quiet, until Jack started rocking his chair.

“Never thought I’d see you this concerned about an omega.”

Jack grunted, the front legs of his chair clacking back down against the ground. If Wilhelm was merely a hired hand, he might think that was out of line, but well. He and his guard went  _way_  back, back before Jack had even clawed into the position of Hyperion’s CEO.

“C’mon. I’m no softie, but even you would’ve stopped and helped if you found an omega smashed across the pavement.”

“Depends. Did I do it?” Wilhelm’s tone was so even and gruff Jack couldn’t even tell if he was joking.

“ _Ugh_. Just. You know how it is.” Jack scuffed his shoe against the linoleum floor, frowning at the smear of blood his sole left behind. “Instincts take over. Seeing one of them all…like that. It just happened.”

“ _Mmm_.” Wilhelm went more quiet after that, staying as a silent but still somewhat comforting presence as Jack waited for more news.

* * *

When Nina emerged from the surgery room, Jack prepared himself for the worst even as his stomach tied itself in knots. Thankfully, the news wasn’t as bad as he feared.

“Omega is resting for time being.  _Very_  sedated. But stable for now,” Nina dropped her gloves into the hazards box, before letting out a small yawn. “You wish to see him?”

Jack shot up so quickly he nearly lost his balance. He’d been pretty tired too, but now he was wide awake as he followed Nina into the post-op room.

_God_. The omega looked so much better, even with tubes and bandages covering his skin. At least Nina had washed the blood off and changed his clothes to a starchy blue hospital robe.

The heart monitor beeped, calm and thankfully steady. Jack pulled the chair up to the omega’s bedside and sat, watching his chest move up and down, breath funnel in and out of the cannula in his nose.

He still looked like crap. But at least he wasn’t actively dying anymore.

“Will need plenty of rest,” Nina spoke as she checked the omega’s IV, ensuring everything remained steady. “Don’t know when he will wake up. Hopefully not very long.”

“Sure. Thanks,” Jack mumbled back, distracted by the fact that the omega was—at least for now—all right. He heard Wilhelm mumble a small  _thanks_  to Nina before she ambled out, taking Gladstone with her.

“You know…you can go to bed, if you’d like,” Jack said to his guard after a long while spent watching the omega. “I’m…not gonna do much. If I need you I can just call you.”

“I understand.” The other chair in the room scraped up against the floor as Wilhelm took a seat besides his boss, looking sidelong at him as Jack kept staring at the prone omega.  

“This guy’s gonna owe you big time.”

Jack murmured in vague agreement. His eyelids felt heavy, body exhausted from the ordeal, but he didn’t want to sleep just yet, not when it didn’t yet feel real that the omega had lived. That the stench of blood and death had finally been scrubbed from his body, leaving that light, natural scent stronger than before, even under the layer of hospital linens and disinfectant.

* * *

Jack woke up the next morning with sunlight filtering through the blinds and his head resting on the edge of the hospital bed.

Memories of the night before came back slowly as he straightened himself up in his seat. He yawned and passed a hand over his mouth before the smells of omega cleared the sleepiness from his eyes. The first thing he saw was the heart monitor, still beeping steadily. A wave of relief passed over him as he swept his eyes over to the bed, where his heart suddenly leapt into his throat.

A pair of eyes—one blue, one brown—watched him from beneath a heavy swath of bandages.

Jack started, the scrape of his chair jarring Wilhelm awake next to him. The other alpha grunted in annoyance but Jack ignored him as he leaned towards the now awake omega, mouth opening and closing as he thought of what he should even say.

“You…you’re  _awak_ e _.”_ All right, so he was just gonna state the obvious? Way to go.

Jack watched the omega’s brows pinch together in confusion. Hi body tensed as if he wanted to move, but all he mustered was a little whine of pain that stabbed Jack in the chest.

“W…where am I…?” The omega groaned, his voice sounding like it’d been scraped across that pavement too. Jack hushed him, not wanting the kid to strain himself.

“Easy. Let’s just…uh…” Jack’s mind drew a blank, suddenly unsure of how to explain to someone that they’d been found bloodied and near death on a country road.

“You were…. _injured_ …I was the one who found you…what a nice guy, right?” Jack chuckles dryly. The omega frowned slightly, but not like he was angry, more like his brain had started to struggle with something.

“I…found me?”

“Yeah.” Jack’s hand slid onto the hospital bed, crinkling towards where the omega’s own lay before he stopped himself and glued it back to his thigh. “You were in pretty bad shape, pumpkin. No clue how you got that way.”

He didn’t want to push the omega since he’d just woke up, but if there was someone looking for him Jack should probably try to figure it out.

“You got a name? Or someone we can call for you, sugar?”

That struggling look on the omega’s face only grew worse at Jack’s words. He screwed up his expression and stuck his tongue out, but a sudden wince forced him to relax into flat bewilderment.

“I…” The omega looked up to Jack, those pretty eyes lost, searching the alpha for help. “I don’t remember.”


End file.
